Our take

Editorials

The story of Mariah Sultana Mustafa’s death is nightmarish, which is why it’s important to read and absorb. California’s Legislature must make clear that counties must release all key documents of foster care deaths. Read more.

Premium content for only $0.99

To Greta from Sacramento, on the occasion of the Academy Awards: Fame comes and goes, but art is forever, and it is a great gift to be seen with warmth and truth and affection. Read more.

(San Luis Obispo) Tribune: Women at the San Luis Obispo County Jail can have menstrual pads for free, but if they want tampons, they have to purchase them from the commissary – for considerably more than they cost on the outside. Other county jails in the state follow that archaic practice as well. Read more.

Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald: It’s easy to find progressive writers willing to lambaste President Trump. But as more than one editor has lamented, when they look for balance to writers on the right who can usually be depended upon to defend a conservative Republican, it turns out they view him with similar scorn. Read more.

Jared Perry: The Legislature should approve a bill allowing active duty members of the military and their families who have a valid, out-of-state driver’s license to drive for ride-sharing services without having to get a California license. Read more.

Andrew Grant: We need to invest in infrastructure to turn Sacramento into a globally connected hub for international business and logistics. Read more.

Takes on Trump’s trade war

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!</p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969525362580484098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2018</a></blockquote>

Jared Bernstein, Washington Post: Even after President Trump’s upset victory, Brexit, and the global rise of a populism nostalgic for a bygone era and industrial mix, political and economic elites still refuse to acknowledge and deal with those hurt by trade and globalization. Read more.

Ramesh Ponnnuru, Bloomberg: George W. Bush also imposed tariffs on steel in his second year in office and, like Trump, did it in part to keep a campaign promise he considered helpful in the Rust Belt. The results of Trump’s tariffs could be worse. Read more.

Michael Schuman, Bloomberg: If Donald Trump was aiming at China with his lofty proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, he’s a terrible marksman. Instead, the tariffs will hurt America’s closest allies in Asia. South Korea accounted for almost 10 percent of all U.S. steel imports last year and Japan for nearly 6 percent. Read more.

Bloomberg View editorial board: It’s always dangerous to say that Donald Trump has set a new low for presidential discourse, because he sets new lows with dreary regularity. Nonetheless, his heedless declaration that “ trade wars are good, and easy to win” deserves special recognition. No president should need to be told that trade wars are, in fact, bad and impossible to win. By imposing new tariffs on steel and aluminum, Trump has embarked on a policy that is a clear and present danger to U.S. jobs and living standards. Read more.

Orange County Register editorial board: In a move that will harm American workers and consumers, President Trump has announced plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. While the White House says that increased reliance on imports was not only undermining the domestic steel and aluminum sectors, but also threatened national security because of their importance to the defense industry, others say the national security justification is thin and the toll on the economy is considerable. Read more.

In our editorials, we pointed out that President Trump’s trade policies are dangerously simplistic and his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership put America last on trade with Asia.

Their take

Los Angeles Times: Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf last weekend issued a public statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were about to stage raids in the Bay Area. Her heart may have been in the right place. But some of those targeted by ICE agents could very well have been people with violent criminal pasts who can make no legitimate argument for avoiding deportation. Tipping off her community that immigration officers were about to enforce duly adopted federal immigration laws crosses a line that ought not to be crossed. Read more.

San Diego Union-Tribune: California’s housing crisis takes a brutal toll on millions of families. A new report by the Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project shows an even larger problem: Unless the housing crisis is resolved, Silicon Valley’s status as the world’s preeminent tech center is doomed. Read more.

San Jose Mercury News: If the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board don’t take action, hundreds of people are going to die on the runway of a U.S. airport. It’s just a matter of time before luck runs out. In a little more than a year, there have been five near-misses at San Francisco International Airport. Read more.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Last week’s rainstorms belie a simple truth – the drought is back. A few days of storms cannot undo months of dryness. Like it or not, Californians need to get back into a drought mindset. Read more.

Syndicates’ take

E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post: We didn’t appreciate having a government that was relatively honest and free of venality until we had one riddled with corruption. And we didn’t know how wildly irresponsible Republican criticisms of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were until the GOP fell silent in the face of abuse after abuse from President Trump. Read more.

Timothy Egan, New York Times: While burnished renditions of British royals dominate the small screen, and a super-powerful African king owns the big screen, the monarchal narcissism of the American president shows why we have a constitutional clause banning any title of nobility. Read more.

Michelle Goldberg, New York Times: The Trump-Russia story is getting weirder. Nothing exemplifies this more than the strange saga of Anastasia Vashukevich. She is a Belarusian woman, a self-described “sex expert,” who is now in a Thai jail and who claims, in a desperate Instagram video, to be the “the missing link in the connection between Russia and the U.S. elections.” Read more.

Dana Milbank, Washington Post: President Trump bumbles along, his approval rating low but relatively constant, while those he touches are disgraced or ruined. Trump delights in destroying foes, but his indiscriminate destruction brings down friends just as easily. Read more.

Ruben Navarrette Jr., Washington Post: No matter how sad your life has become, Fox News host Tucker Carlson will make you feel better by teaching you to look down on others. That is Carlson’s shtick these days, but recently he crossed a line when he savagely bullied a guest and used the word “American” as a weapon. Read more.

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post: President Trump convulsed the markets by risking a trade war, scrambled Republicans by promising to back a bunch of gun measures he probably doesn’t intend to back, and refused to empower his national security team to protect our election system against manipulation by Russia. Read more.

Mailbag

“It is encouraging to see the many companies divest their relationship with the NRA. Yet, FedEx refuses to do so, thereby supporting the gun lobby's crusade to ensure everyone in the country has an assault weapon so that more children can be murdered in classrooms.” – Kevin Depies, Elk Grove

Tweets of the day

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!</p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/969529668234829825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2018</a></blockquote>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Agony though it may be, I’d like to hang in there for the impeachment hearings, the resignation speech, the farewell helicopter ride to Mara-A-Lago. You know. The Good Stuff. That we’ve all been waiting for.</p>&mdash; ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABFalecbaldwin/status/969552646498643968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2018</a></blockquote>

Read Next

Changing the DMV’s leadership is a good step forward, but fixing its problems will be harder than replacing the names on the stationery. Gavin Newsom’s thoughts on the DMV are well-documented, giving voters a chance to hold him accountable for his handling of its problems.